


Sanity on the Run

by Siriex



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11094957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriex/pseuds/Siriex
Summary: A collection of quick drabbles about Prelati (Well- both Prelatis), frequently featuring Gilles. Both before and after Prelati's first death. Spoilers for Fate/Strange Fake through the end of Volume 3.





	1. Curiosity, Pity, and Something Else

Everything about Gilles de Montmorency-Laval’s castle was opulent. From fraying rugs worth ten years’ salary, to the tapestries gathering dust, to worn remnants of Le Mistère du Siège d'Orléans scattered on tables throughout, everything stunk of wealth. Francois Prelati had heard tell of the production as far away as Italy, but thought it was rumor. Eustache Blanchet disabused him of that notion. Baron de Rais’s coffers were deep, but waning. The amount he’d spent did not matter to Francois. Baron de Rais still had the money to pay. 

Beautiful boys and girls, well-groomed in contrast to the castle, scattered to make way for their passing. Servants. Francois waved to one of the servant boys. He did not meet his eyes- simply disappeared around a corner into the dark. 

The Baron’s quarters were the furthest from the entrance. Their door was adorned with carvings of angels, knights, and holy light. It was a work of art. Had been. The varnish was interrupted at uneven intervals by scores made by a blade. Francois dug his nail into one of the grooves. The wood was soft. The wound was fresh. 

“You will have to forgive him,” Blanchet warned, “He has been out of sorts lately.”

“Lately?” Francois inquired. 

“Since the war.” Blanchet acknowledged. “Since her death. He holds little hope outside of magic. There is little point in asking now, but I want to confirm. You can do what you say?” 

“I would never lie to you my friend.” Francois said with a flourish. “I swear it upon my very soul. I will give your master what he seeks, provided he can uphold his end of the bargain.” 

“If you succeed then that will hardly be an issue.” Blanchet rapped his knuckles on the door. There were two quarter tracks on the ground marked by dust and its absence. Francois had not seen a servant in several floors. If they came here, they did not come to clean. A frail voice called out from within, and Blanchet pulled the doors open. The hinges shrieked. Blanchet flinched. Francois grinned. 

It was impossible to determine the size of the Baron’s quarters. Whatever windows served this place were covered ten times over. A lone candle set the Baron’s silhouette apart from the black. He was a thin man, and the light ate away at his edges. Whatever muscle knighthood granted was stripped away by time, just as his funds had rained through his fingers. Gilles de Rais, the man who fought by the side of a saint, sat upon the floor before that single candle, body wracked with sobs.

“My Lord. I have brought the alchemist. His name is,”

Francois strode sure into the dark. The candle flickered with his passage. “Francois Prelati, my lord.” He cupped his arm below his chest and gave a bow that would have put Gilles’s actors to shame. Gilles de Rais raised his head. The shadows free from candlelight lit his face like a corpse. Tear tracks marked trails of light along his cheeks. 

Gilles reached for Francois like a sinner reached for salvation. His hand was a skeleton- his nails rusted blades. A shiver not borne from cold ripped up Francois’s spine. “My alchemist.” Gilles croaked.

Francois caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Your alchemist,” He confirmed, smiling against his bones. “For as long as you will have me. In return for your generosity I promise that I will follow you as high as Heaven, or as low as Hell.” 

“There is no Heaven for men like me.” 

The shriek of the door’s hinges warned of coming darkness. Flickering flames cast their shadows about the room, mixing, merging, twisting together and apart before settling separate. 

“To Hell then,” Francois tucked his hand under Gilles’s palm and raised him to his feet. “Shall we begin?”


	2. London Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Francois Prelati goes to London on a research trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Memories associated with the smell of fumes.

Francois’s first breath of London air sets him coughing. He clutches at the lapels of his coat and ducks into the nearest bar to grab something anything to wet down his throat. It’s been a very long time since he’d last been to London. The Clock Tower made sure of that. Francois remembers the days before the Clock Tower. Francois remembers when people fought with swords and died under the pretense of chivalry. He smiles and raises a glass to a man that’s been dead for centuries.

A stranger slides into the seat next to his and jerks his head at the beer. “Celebrating?”

“Human progress,” He confirms, jerking his head back at the clogged streets outside without a hint of irony. “Can’t even see the sky.”

“Can’t even see the street.”

Francois laughs and calls for another drink for his new friend. The beer tastes like piss, but it’s better than the air outside. “It’s some kind of city.”

“Some kind of city.” The man confirms. “What brings you all the way out here? That accent’s… What? Italian?”

Francois shrugs and takes a good look at his drinking buddy. He’s a large man, covered in dirt and grime just like everyone else in this city. His face bears a nasty scar. He wonders briefly how he got it. “I’m looking for someone. Chased him across a continent and a half by now. You know a man named Makiri? Zolgen. Old guy. Not very pretty. I was after him in the East, but by the time I got there he was already out here.”

The man goes stiff. The entire damn place goes quiet as hell except for a buzzing that’s growing louder by the second. Francois sighs and drops payment for his drink on the counter. “Nevermind. I think I found him.” And then everything’s black and he knows no more.


	3. Matinee Performance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just before the 4th Holy Grail War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Memories associated with the smell of cupcakes.

It’s 1994, and there’s a cute little café in the next town over from Fuyuki. It smells like fresh-baked cupcakes, and Francesca takes a deep breath before clearing the doorway for the next customer. She orders a slice of strawberry cake, and takes a seat at the table in the far corner. There aren’t many things that she can do from here. That disgusting old man (though he is younger than she) is keeping a close eye on the city. She’ll get eaten up to her last cell if she tries to interfere with this Grail War- she knows it all too well. All that’s left is to bide her time and wait to see how it will all play out from afar.

She pulls a crystal ball- little more than a marble at the moment- from her skirts and holds it up to her eye. Six Servants summoned. A seventh more before the war can begin. In the mean time she’s amused herself by watching a particularly interesting boy who’s returned the city. He has a pretty face and eyes like hers and the path he walks is covered in blood and she loves the art he leaves behind. She wants to talk to him- wishes dearly to make his acquaintance. But that damned bag of bones just likes to spoil all her fun. So she takes a generous bite of cake, holds the marble up to her eye, and watches.

A flash of light so bright it almost blinds her. Two faces slack with awe. A third she knows- has known. Has always known and held dear to her heart. A man she loves, holding the precious gift she’d given him.

“Gilles?” Her voice is nothing but a whisper drowned under the cutesy pop music blaring from the speakers above the counter. And then she begins to laugh. She laughs and laughs and presses her hands to her gut and tears prick at her eyes. “Gilles. Gilles. Gilles! He’s here. He really came!” Another thought strikes her. A little mental arithmetic. Nothing more, nothing less. Six Servants summoned, only one left. And that one has to be… “Caster?” The entire shop stares. Francesca ignores it and orders another slice of cake. No. Make that two. For a friend.


	4. Easy does it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prelati asks Gilles for a favor.

Prelati rubs small circles around Gilles’s spine again and again, wearing at the fabric until he’s sure it will fray away. He chants comforting words like a mantra. Winds his arms around his lord’s shoulders, and mumbles sentimental spells until the weeping stops and his shaking stills. 

“Must I really? There is no other way?”

Francois kneads his fingers into his thigh in comfort. “We have tried every other method I know. This is the only way.” He reaches for his friend’s wrists and coaxes his hands from his face.   
Gilles’s visage is a twist of grief and pain and something more. He clasps his hands around Francois’s, joints creaking, teeth snarled. “But if I do that then I cannot go back.” That something more is familiar to Prelati. Gilles smiles. Between his teeth and from his bulging eyes leaks madness. 

Candles flicker. Francois’s fingers dig into the hide of his thigh. Affectionate. Encouraging. “My magecraft cannot reverse the flow of time. No matter the resources, no matter the funds, I cannot change the past. There is nothing for you, nothing for us, but the future.” 

“So there was never a choice to begin with. Then my fate, her fate is fixed?” 

A crucifix hangs on the wall, dancing in the light. Just one. There were more when Prelati first arrived. Prelati had worn one around his neck at the time. Still does to this day… Though he’s been forgetting it lately. Once, perhaps twice a week he leaves it on his bedside table. Gilles does not notice. Prelati springs to his feet and spreads his arms wide, a player on a stage built for one. “There is always a choice! But that choice rests in the present. God’s given you this dungeon, your status, and a lost love. So what will you do next? What will you build on this foundation? Will you build? Or will you wallow in the mud?” 

Gilles looks to the cross and clasps his hands as if in prayer. He does not speak to God. He speaks to a girl burned to ash and cast upon the wind. A lost life. A lost opportunity for the both of them. As he prays, Prelati sits back upon his heels and waits, watching the press of his lips and reading the wishes upon them. He had prayed that way once, a very long time ago, in a country that used different thoughts. Different words. But nothing had come of it, and he’d realized his hope was nothing but dust. Gilles’s hands press tight together, cut with shadows of standing sinew. They are white like a ghost’s- the intensity of his devotion pushing the blood away. He clutches that fading faith, pushing it into his skin as if to make it a part of his very body. 

Maybe it’s admiration. Maybe it’s even love. Prelati cannot be sure, but whatever it is it holds him back. He does not push, does not pry, just waits with his eyes closed to give Gilles as much privacy as they can afford. 

Hands pock-marked with memories of war close around Prelati’s. He opens his eyes. Gilles still shakes, but his eyes are fever. “You can do it?” he asks, and Prelati can taste his breath across an inch’s gap.   
“Of course I can.” Prelati can feel something digging into his palms. It feels like energy. Magic. Something he’s long forgotten. In that moment he believes that he can do anything. And he does. He peppers kisses to his companion’s cheekbones and whispers sweet promises into his ears of mountains of wealth and the deepest, darkest depths of pleasure in return for this one thing- this little favor.   
Gilles reciprocates- holds him close and for the first time Prelati can feel the life in his chest- the same heat that his comrades must have felt on the battlefield. He presses the handle of a knife into his lord’s right hand, and a bottle into his left. “Bring me the materials,” he whispers, “And all you wish will be yours.” 

The red of tears has not yet faded from Gilles’s face when he returns to Prelati with the bottle. Prelati accepts it with shaking hands. He does not look at its contents, for he knows what he will find. There will be plenty of time to examine them later. He searches his friend’s face for a clue. It is placid- smiling. A mask, but not a mask. He looks happier than Prelati has ever seen him. Almost proud. It warms a heart he didn’t know he had. 

Did he smile like that as he was slicing the limbs from the babe? Did he use the same sword he’d swung on the battlefield at the side of a Saint? Did he kill it first, or did he dismember it while it cried in protest of the world’s betrayal? Prelati hugs the gruesome present to his chest and knits his fingers with his lord’s. They stand before a circle inscribed in an ancient language copied from a book fresh-bound with flesh. He makes a wish. It is a little wish- nothing compared to the wishes he’ll chase in another body. Another life. 

Gilles wishes for gold. For demons. For a girl long-gone, and an endless encore.

Prelati wills his magic circuits to life, and wishes for his friend’s eternal smile.


End file.
